Great escapes: 'Englishness' and the prisoner of war genre

Film History: An International Journal

Volumn 14, Issue 3-4, 2002, Pages 282-295

  Cull, Nicholas J ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 60949698756     PISSN: 08922160     EISSN: 15533905     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2979/FIL.2002.14.3-4.282     Document Type: Review

References (63)

1. The high street stationery chain W. H. Smith offered an even larger presentation pack including an England football shirt and other commemorative items
2. This highly subjective observation is based on the author's experience teaching history at the universities of Birmingham and Leicester during this decade
3. In this regard Englishness was rather like American-ness. In fact American-ness is a direct outgrowth of English political values; the American Revolution was begun by colonists who sought the rights of domestic Englishmen
4. For a recent analysis of Englishness (including a review of the surge of literature on the subject in the past decade) see Robert Colls, Identity of England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)
5. The present author's ideas about post-war Englishness and popular culture are developed in Cull, 'Camping on the borders: history, identity and British ness in the Carry On costume parodies, 1963-1974' in Claire Monk and Amy Sargeant (eds) British Historical Cinema (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 92-109
6. Cull, 'Bigger on the inside ... Dr. Who as British Cultural History' in Graham Roberts and Philip M. Taylor (eds) The historian, television and television history (Luton: University of Luton Press, 2001), pp. 95-112
7. Basil Dearden (dir.), The Captive Heart, Ealing, 1946
8. Eric Williams, The Wooden Horse (London: Collins, 1949), other key memoirs included Williams' follow up The Tunnel (London: Collins, 1951)
9. Escape to Danger (London: Faber and Faber, 1946) co-written by Paul Brickhill and Conrad Norton
10. Paul Brickhill's The Great Escape (London: Faber & Faber, 1951) and his follow up Escape - or die: Authentic stories of the RAF escaping society (London: Evans Brothers, 1952)
11. P.R. Reid's Colditz memoirs: The Colditz Story (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1952)
12. and The Latter Days of Colditz (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1953)
13. and a memoir by the MP and successful Colditz escaper Airey Neave, They Have Their Exits (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1953)
14. Jack Lee (dir.), The Wooden Horse, Wessex, 1950
15. Lewis Gilbert (dir.), Albert RN, Dial, 1953, review in Observer, 11 October 1953
16. Guy Hamilton (dir.), The Colditz Story, British Lion, 1954; stills and ephemera British Film Institute, London
17. Paul Dehn, 'I want to escape from these POW films', Northern Chronicle, 28 January 1955
18. also Paul Holt, 'No More Escape Films Please!' Daily Herald, 28 January 1955
19. 'Escape film shown at Borstal', The Times, 15 May 1955
20. Lewis Gilbert (dir.), Reach for the Sky, Rank, 1956
21. Bryan Forbes (dir.), Danger Within, British Lion, 1958
22. E. Betts, The People, 22 February 1959
23. Michael Gilbert, Death in Captivity (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1952)
24. Hugo Fregonese (dir.), Seven Thunders, Rank, 1957
25. Hugo Fregonese (dir.), Harry Black and the Tiger, Mersham, 1958
26. Jack Lee (dir.), A Town Like Alice, Rank, 1956
27. Val Guest (dir.) The Camp on Blood Island, Hammer, 1958
28. Marcia Landy, British Genres: Cinema and Society, 1930-1960 (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 174
29. David Lean (dir), Bridge on the River Kwai, Columbia/Sam Spiegel, 1957
30. KenAnnakin (dir.) Very Important Person, Rank, 1961
31. Isabel Quigly review in The Spectator, 28 April 1961
32. Andrew Stone (dir.) The Password is Courage, A & VStone/MGM, 1962 from John Castle, The Password is Courage (London: Souvenir Press, 1954)
33. For Coward's displeasure at the romance see Jack Lewis, 'The Password was not love says Charlie', Sunday Citizen, 14 October 1962
34. for his obituary see Roger Insall 'Forgotten ... Cockney hero called Coward', Evening News, 29 December 1976
35. For contrasting reviews see (pro) Nina Hibben, Daily Worker, 13 October 1962 and (anti) D. Hill in Topic, 20 October 1962. The Auschwitz sequence was included in versions of the film shown on TV in the 1970s - the present author was devastated by a viewing one evening aged 10 - but is not included in the version now shown by Turner Classic Movies
36. Campbell Dixon, review of Albert RN in Daily Telegraph, 10 October 1953
37. For a radically contrasting treatment of POW life in the First World War see J.R. Ackerley's play The Prisoners of War (London: Chatto & Windus, 1925), now revered as a pioneering work of gay literature
38. Dilys Powell, review of The Wooden Horse in Sunday Times 30 July 1950
39. Andy Medhurst '1950s War Films' in Geoff Hurd (ed.) National Fictions: World War Two in British Films and Television; Reid, The Colditz Story, p. iii
40. Paul Holt 'Best film of the War - and we made it', Daily Herald, 28 July 1950
41. For an account of the origins and making of The Great Escape see Stephen Jay Rubin, Combat Films: American Realism, 1945-1970 (Jefferson NC: McFarland, 1981), pp. 79-115
42. For Burnett see Pat McGillian, Backstory: Interviews with screen writers of Hollywood's golden age (Berkeley CA: University of California Press, 1986), p. 79
43. The draft script forms part of the John Sturges collection at the AMPAS Margaret Herrick Library, Beverly Hills, California
44. Pierre Boulle, Bridge of the River Kwai (London: Secker & Warburg, 1954)
45. Alistair Maclean, The Guns of Navarone (London: Collins, 1957)
46. Yorweth Davies, Guardian, 8 August 1962
47. Ann Pacey, review in Daily Herald, 22 June 1963
48. Douglas Bader, review, News of the World, 23 June 1963
49. Philip Oakes, review, Sunday Telegraph, 23 June 1963
50. Pehelope Gilliot in The Observer 23 June 1963 broke ranks and expressed distaste for the officer class heroics and the cocky music, and sympathy for the Germans
51. Sydney Smith, 'Wings' Day (London: Collins, 1968)
52. Michael Winner (dir.), Hannibal Brooks, United Artists, 1969
53. Broadcasting, 31 July 1972, p. 39
54. BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham Park: production files - Colditz, T65/83/1
55. Radio Times, 31 October 1972
56. BBC WAC: Colditz, T65/83/1
57. Ivan Moffat (w.) Colditz, 'Liberation' tx 1 April 1974
58. On Tenko see Cary Bazalgette, 'TV drama goes back to front.' in Hurd (ed), National Fictions, pp. 44-46
59. Michael Paris, Warrior Nation: Images of War in British Popular Culture, 1850-2000 (London: Reaktion Books, 2000), p. 235
60. Examples included a Bit of Fry and Laurie sketch (circa 1992) featuring a spoof of the Donald Pleasance blind scene in The Great Escape
61. Chris Durlacher (Prod/Dir) Escape from Colditz (3 pts, Channel Four/Windfall with Nova/WGBH Boston, 2000). The lack of American funding is readily apparent in Beryl Vertue (Prod.) Michael Davies (wr/dir), The War Behind the Wire (2 pts, BBC/Hartswood Films, 2000), but the absence of slick reconstructions is not necessarily a disadvantage
62. 'Wallace and Gromit creator in £150 m. Spielberg deal', Independent, 29 April 1999
63. Stuart Husband, 'Fowl Play a foot' Guardian, 2 June 2000; Sec. 2, pp. 8-9